Practicing yoga has been proven to be an effective way to help boost women’s fertility. Yoga is meant to put a person’s physical body in sync with their spiritual self—many practice yoga to bring peace in the soul’s abstract realm and the body’s tangible realm.
Practicing yoga poses and asanas, even if you have not taken on the religious or spiritual aspects of it, are still great ways to make your body healthier and a more conducive environment for a baby to grow in. You do not need any extraordinary skill or flexibility to get started, either. Keep reading for six yoga poses that can help boost fertility.
Effective Yoga Poses That Can Help Boost Fertility:
- Supta Baddha Konasana (Reclining Bound Angle)
- Pachimottan Asana (Seated Forward Fold)
- Bhramari Pranayama (Bee Breath)
- Sarvangasana (The Shoulder Stand)
- Setu Bandhasana (The Supported Bridge Pose)
- Bhujang Asana (The Cobra Pose)
Supta Baddha Konasana (Reclining Bound Angle)
This yoga pose is multi-faceted and helps a woman in different ways. Firstly, it builds the lower body’s strength: it exercises the inner thigh and groin muscles.
Secondly, it decreases muscle tension. The Supta Baddha Konasana can help ease the body when an individual is undergoing a medicated fertility cycle, decreases discomfort associated with In Vitro Fertilization (IVF).
Thirdly, this pose also helps to relieve stress, reduce fatigue, and give relief from insomnia.
Start by lying out straight and flat on your back on the yoga mat. This is the first position.
Next, bend your knees to bring the soles of your feet (the bottom of them) to touch each other. Your toes should also be lined up and facing each other. Make sure your shoulders are relaxed and away from your ears. This is the second position.
Remain in this position for up to a minute, while doing so, breathe in and out deeply and slowly, keeping your breath steady. Continue to breathe steadily. Slowly return to the first position: lying straight on your back on the yoga mat.
Pachimottan Asana (Seated Forward Fold)
This yoga pose strengthens the ovaries, the uterus, the lower back, waist, hamstrings, and other vital organs responsible for conception.
Start this pose seated with your legs lying straight in front of you, your toes flexed towards your torso, and your back straight. This whole asana can be described as a stretch where you attempt to your best ability to touch your head to your knees.
Start by inhaling and stretching your arms above your head as far as they can go. Then, exhale and bend forward at the hip. While exhaling, bend forward with your torso. Reach out your arms to touch the floor on the sides of your feet, next to where your toes are. While doing this, keep your spine erect.
Remain in the second position you have assumed with your body bent. Breathe steadily; each time you inhale, inhale deeply and exhale, push yourself to bend further towards your legs with your head.
When you have reached your reasonable limit, remain in that position for two minutes. After this, inhale deeply. Come back to the first position with your arms stretched out as you inhale this last time. Exhale and lower your arms.
Bhramari Pranayama (Bee Breath)
This pose can boost fertility because it has the function of calming the body down and curing anxiety. Psychological and physical stress is a huge inhibitor to conception because the body interprets it as the environment not being conducive for childbirth, resulting in infertility. Calmness increases the chances of conception remarkably.
This pose consists of two motions. First, start in the basic lotus pose (cross-legged sitting position) with your back straight, and your body relaxed.
Before you begin any motion, you will gently place each thumb over the earlobe on the same side as the hand. Let your middle finger and your ring finger gently rest on your eyelids to keep your eyes shut, your pointer on your forehead, and your pinky relaxed on your face.
The first motion involves breathing in deeply. Take a deep breath through your nose and let the air travel to your chest. While doing this, let your hands be relaxed and only lying in their position.
The second motion involves breathing out as you make a humming sound. While breathing out, push on your ear lobes to block out outside sounds and heighten the sound of the hum in your ears.
Sarvangasana (The Shoulder Stand)
The shoulder stand or “Sarvangasana” is a yoga pose where your whole body is balanced on your shoulders. This pose stimulates or boosts fertility by causing the stimulation of the thyroid gland. Dysfunctions of the thyroid such as hyperthyroid and hypothyroid can cause infertility in some cases, so stimulating the thyroid gland is important.
Start out lying straight on your yoga mat on you back with your legs stretched out on the mat. Your arms should also lie flat on the mat, each arm at your side with your palms facing up.
Next, bend your knees and bring your legs up to a 90-degree angle between your torso and your thighs. Let your arms and hands be relaxed at this time but still lying flat with your palms up. (You are about to do work with them.)
Inhale and lift both of your legs: your feet should be in the air now; your legs should be together. Place your palms on the space between your butt and the back of your pelvis as support for the next part of this pose.
Push your hips forward and bring your chest closer to your chin. While doing this, adjust your hands, continuously using them as support as you move them from around your waist to the lower back.
From your torso to your toes, your body should be a straight vertical line. Elongate the lower part of your body while keeping your breath normal. Hold this for up to a minute, breathing slowly and deeply.
When you come out of the pose, take your time and slowly lower your legs from the knees down first. Then slowly lower your torso and move your hands accordingly, still offering them support until your butt touched the mat again. Continue to lay out your legs back into the way they were in the beginning. Relax and take a breath.
Setu Bandhasana (The Supported Bridge Pose)
This pose helps boost fertility in two ways. Firstly, it calms the brain and helps to alleviate stress and depression that can cause infertility. It reduces anxiety, fatigue, and insomnia and is therapeutic for menstrual discomfort and even for the symptoms of menopause.
Secondly, it causes more blood to pump to the organs that are involved in conception. It stimulates the abdominal organs, the thyroid, the legs, especially in the thigh region. This pose even exercises the lungs and works as a treatment for other things such as asthma and high blood pressure.
Start out lying on the yoga mat, flat on your back, legs stretched out and relaxed, arms stretched out at your sides, the rest of your body relaxed as well.
The first thing you will do is bring your feet up so that your heels are as close to your hips as they can be while your feet remain planted flat on the mat by bending your knees. Your feet, as well as your knees, should each remain a hip-width apart from each other. Place your hands at your sides, palms facing the floor.
Placing your palms firmly on the ground without stiffening your arm, you will next proceed to lift your torso, engaging your core. Lift yourself, starting with your hips, then your abdomen, and then your chest off the floor. This is the part of the pose where you have formed a bridge with your body.
Your knees might tend to pull apart when you lift your body. To prevent this, you need to apply some pressure to your knees to keep them at a hip-width distance apart. However, another approach is to place an object such as a block or a ball between your knees and squeeze on the object as you lift to keep your knees in check, working your legs.
Next, you can interlock your fingers in the middle, underneath the raised portion of your body. Lift your chest a bit more, creating space now between your shoulders and the mat. Once you have interlocked your hands, placing them firmly on the floor will give you a base to go into a deeper backbend.
Remain in this position for 5 to 10 breaths before returning slowly to the first, relaxed position. Some modifications can be made to this asana to accommodate a beginner or an individual with weaker hip strength.
One modification is to keep your arms on the floor with your palms facing the floor to support you. Do not interlock your hands besides alternatively, if you do not have enough strength to lift your body into the bridge pose. Use your hands to support your body weight.
For the second modification, bend your arms at your elbows and place your palms below your hip, holding your body up. But, if your arms are not in this range of motion, you can also place a block underneath your hips and use it as a support to hold you up. Adjusting the block can help you go higher or lower to your comfortability.
Bhujang Asana (The Cobra Pose)
This pose is called the “bhujang asana,” which means the “the cobra pose” because the pose resembles a cobra when it lifts its head and the front of its body from the ground before striking its prey.
This pose is useful because it improves blood flow to the ovaries and the uterus, aiding in maintaining a hormonal balance important to good fertility. It also helps to build cervical muscles, making it easier for sperm to journey through the ovaries to the egg.
Start out lying flat on your stomach on top of your yoga mat. Keep your feet together, and a bit stretched out to keep the compression on them at a minimum. Your arms are lying flat at your side, your palms facing upward. Lastly, place your chin on the floor. This is the first position.
The starting position follows from here. Be careful with your starting position. From the first position, you will bring your hands, palms now facing downward, forward on the mat until each hand is under each shoulder. In this position, if you extend your thumbs outward in the position in which your hand is placed, they should come close to your breasts.
You need to bring your elbows close to your body from your position after moving your hands and placing them below your shoulders. Bring them as close as you possibly can without stiffening up your body. Failure to keep your elbows close to you could result in bad form and injury.
Breathe in normally and slowly bring your body up. A beginner can take another breath when they have risen completely. Otherwise, hold the breath you took in a while in this position. Rising, start from your chin, then your neck, then the area of your spine. Your hands will maintain your balance but avoid putting excessive pressure on them.
Make sure your neck area is also loose. The area of the neckline should not be your anchor as you rise into the cobra pose. As you exhale, slowly come back down, and resume the first position. Bring your chin down, relax your hands to the beginning, and relax. Let your shoulders relax on the ground.
Note that this asana is not recommended for someone who is already pregnant or for someone who suffers from back pain or head pain being medically treated. Also, people with kidney or liver problems should not try this pose.
Yoga & Women’s Reproductive Health
A woman’s reproductive health incorporates many different aspects, each of which is effectively addressed in daily yoga practices such as those explained above.
First of all, a woman’s mental and emotional condition affects her reproductive ability and her ability to carry a child if she should conceive. Excessive stress can lead to miscarriages, for example. As shown in many of the poses above, regular yoga can help a woman ease stress and anxiety in her life.
Some of the asanas explained above help release or produced endorphins and hormones that can prevent depression or anxiety from dominating a woman’s life. A great example from the list above is the “Bee Breath” pose. It causes you to sit still and to meditate while consciously practicing stress-relieving exercises.
Another important aspect of reproductive health is the strength of the reproductive organs and the other body parts that support a women’s reproductive system.
A good example of an organ not directly considered a part of the women’s reproductive system, but that can still affect it, is the thyroid. Having a disorder of the thyroid has been associated with menstrual problems, sometimes a lack of ovulation. This means that there is no egg ready to be fertilized sometimes during the woman’s menstrual cycle.
But yoga, including many of the poses mentioned above, also stimulates the thyroid. Not only that, it helps the body to build strength and address menstrual cramping and other forms of menstrual disorders. Even menopausal women can benefit from practicing yoga.
Practicing yoga also builds muscles. It is important for infertility that daily yoga practice can help a woman strengthen her pelvic, thigh, abdominal, and waist muscles. These muscles need to be strong for childbirth and will also aid in conception.
Final Thoughts
All of these six yoga poses are great ways to build up your body’s strength, take care of your mental health, and boost your fertility and your chances of conception. While this article breaks down how to perform each of these poses step-by-step, other precautions are also important when practicing any form of physical exercise.
It is advisable to reach out to a professional yoga instructor to help you master the technique even before giving it a go at home. However, suppose you cannot afford a personal coach or have no yoga studio near you. In that case, many certified experts online have helpful video tutorials that will take you through the process according to the level of difficulty.
Finding the best fit for your personal needs will come down to what your priorities are in this area, what your budget looks like and how well you can learn new techniques on your own and with what amount of guidance.
~Namaste